Car Charging Stations: Future Plans

My wife's big dream is to own a Prius one day, or a hybrid of some sort, just so she can drive around in town and not worry about using much gas. If you are located in a larger city, you may have seen some of the recharging stations that are being designed and used in some areas for the cars that require plugging in to recharge. Well, recent news reports that while early designs were set up with a pay-at-the-pump type look of current gas stations, the utility companies that provide the power are shifting to make them be set up more like you pay your cell phone service.

For now, most recharging stations are set up to be free, hoping to draw more people into going electric. But as the industry grows, and more and more people are using these electric recharging stations, the companies currently footing the payment for the power will most likely have to begin charging to offset the higher volume of use.

So now companies are looking at the various ways the payment could be arranged; a pay at the pump type, or a flat monthly fee type, or something else. A flat rate or monthly subscription fee has the benefit of locking in a customer base for companies, similar to your cell phone bills.

The push and plan of President Obama, is to have a million plug-in cars in use by the year 2015. While there are a thousand recharging stations in use today, that number will drastically skyrocket in the next few years. For now the biggest growth of stations will be in the larger cities, and the larger traveled roads. Cities like San Francisco and Chicago are expecting to build almost two hundred and ninety stations in the near future. One Texas company plans to have sixty stations completed by this summer, and another sixty by the end of the year. Most cars will need charged for quite a few hours to be fully charged, but there are some fast-charging stations that can do the job of a near full charge in about thirty minutes; though the stations cost a considerable amount more to build.

Things are rapidly changing in the real near future, so companies are working hard to make the transition as easy as possible. I look forward to the day when more and more electric based cars are in service, mainly because it will help the cost of them come down to where I can afford one.

Jeff McCormack resides in Virginia Beach, VA. where he works as a web designer by day. In his off time he is a husband, father, mail order book store manager, and musician. Aside from being a freelance writer for this Utilities Jobsite blog, he also seeks to assist in career choices and information by contributing to other Nexxt blog sites.